The Thebaid
The original, as its museum records it
Every line above is reproduced from the holding institution’s own catalogue entry, which is linked. Where their title, date or attribution differs from ours, theirs is the one printed here.
The file this print is made from
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About this painting
Every man in this rock fled other men, and the painter packs the valley with them. Athanasius wrote of Anthony's Egypt that the desert was colonised by monks; here it is, colonised — a hermit at the well, another riding a deer, a crowd of solitudes sharing one riverbank.
The Uffizi reads the river and its trees as the spiritual garden where ascetic virtue prospers. Richard Stracke notes that Onuphrius passed sixty years in the empty desert; here he has neighbours on every side.
A group carries an elder on a stretcher: solitude, and still they carry each other.
Sources: the river and tree-filled landscape as a metaphor for the spiritual garden of ascetic virtue; the hermit at the well; the hermit riding a tamed deer; the elder carried on a stretcher; Anthony Abbot and Onuphrius named · Museo di San Marco e Cenacoli (Direzione regionale Musei nazionali Toscana), "La Tebaide di Beato Angelico al Museo di San Marco," 27 March 2024 · Museo di San Marco e Cenacoli (Direzione regionale Musei nazionali Toscana), "La Tebaide attribuita a Beato Angelico raccontata da Angelo Tartuferi in un video," 18 April 2024 · Anne Leader, "The Church and Desert Fathers in Early Renaissance Florence: Further Thoughts on a 'New' Thebaid," in New Studies on Old Masters: Essays in Renaissance Art in Honour of Colin Eisler (CRRS), pp. 221–234 · Catalogo generale dei Beni Culturali (ICCD, Ministero della Cultura), scheda OA 0900121902, "storie di eremiti, dipinto, ca 1420" · Athanasius, Life of Antony, §14 (trans. H. Ellershaw, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. 4) · Roman Martyrology as printed in Richard Stracke, "St. Onuphrius: Art, Legend, Iconography," Christian Iconography
Printed on demand. Public-domain masterwork, reproduced from a 10,119 px master of the original. The whole image is printed — never cropped to fit the sheet — so every sheet carries an archival margin, and the dimensions and resolution listed above are the ones you receive.